Visiting Arium Botanicals, in Portland

At the urging of my friend Ann, I attended a meeting of the PNW branch of the American Begonia Society back on Nov 24th . That meeting took place at Arium Botanicals, a shop I'd never even heard of—even though they're burning up Instagram with 47K followers. Where have I been!?

The houseplant craze just keeps building (which I suppose means it isn't just a craze?) and shops like this are popping up around town (and in my Instagram feed).

I'll admit seeing Instagram explode with houseplant pictures and the accompanying hashtag madness (#plantparenthood #houseplantsofinstagram #monsteramonday) had me rolling my eyes—at first. But many (most?) of these houseplant lovers are actually serious plant people with impressive knowledge of these plants.

Here at Arium the plants are all labeled with their proper botanical names. This should be standard operating procedure when selling plants, but it's definitely not.

This Rhipsalis boliviana was pretty adorable, but at $30 a little rich for my blood.

They had some really nice pottery too...

The space is full, but not cramped.

And installations like this...

And this...

...are very inspiring. As is the moss-covered column for growing plants up, up, up. Note there are smaller ones available (on the right)...

I must admit watching and eavesdropping I was very much feeling like the 20-something apartment dweller I used to be...the younger me longing to own a home and thus a garden.

I didn't buy my first home until I was 34—that was a few years ago (just a few...)—but I've come to take having soil to plant in for granted now. How I would have loved shops like this when I did not.

Wait! I love shops like this now!!! Like a great deal of my plants, these are houseplants in the winter, patio plants in the summer (thanks to Ann for that great label—"patio plants")

Anthurium pedato-radiatum (kokedama version—$205)

There were lots of mounted plants available...

Dischidia imbricata

And a nice selection of kokedama too...

But the reason I was there was for the Begonia Society meeting, right? They were very enthusiastic plant people, and of course brought lots of great plants to show and share.

This spiky guy—brought by Emily, of In Search of Small Things—is Begonia versicolor. I also visited Emily's home garden and propagation area and will have a post on that amazingness coming up soon.

Here Linda is showing off a leaf cutting of Begonia masoniana (the iron cross begonia).

I went home with cuttings of Begonia soli-mutata (Sun-Changing Begonia) and Begonia bowerae nigramarga, which I'm trying to get to root. I also bought a fabulous little bird's nest sansevieria from Arium...it was a good night!

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